The Gym Diary. Day One.

Hello again.

I, as is evidenced by the writing of this post, have decided to turn over a new leaf. This is something everyone should do once every couple of years. It’s good for the soul.

What you do is that you make a series of sweeping and dramatic changes to your lifestyle, and maintain them for six weeks. This is approximately the amount of time that it takes you to realise that you really were rather fond of the old leaf, and that living a cheerfully dissipated life beats the hell out of being mindful, virtuous, and dull.

But fear not. I’m just setting out. I’m still all aflutter with the limitless possibilities spreading out before me. I’m going to start writing again. Hell, I’m doing it as we speak! I’m going to go to bed early, and read the classics, and stop teasing my children, and be kind to animals, even Charlie the hell-dog. I’m going to be lean, focussed, popular and well groomed. I’m going to do all things in moderation. I’m going to wake up refreshed and motivated and keep my sock cupboard well organised.

Available for a limited time only.

I am, in other words, going to become the best possible version of myself, and in six week’s time, when it all goes to hell, and I go back to being the common or garden me again, everyone is going to be very sad.

And to kick the whole thing off, I have joined the gym. This is awesome because it gives me something to write about. I have tried a number of different styles of blog posts in the past. Cookery posts. Fashion posts. Poetry posts. Photography posts. Parenting posts. But never a gym post. Brace yourselves.

I started off by checking out some other fitness blogs. It all looks fairly straightforward. All you have to do is tell people what you ate, and how many reps you did on the transversal lat-extruder (if it’s a leg day), and then post a motivational picture of an eagle. I can do that.

I’m so motivated I’m doing squat thrusts as we speak.

Diet.

My primary motivation in starting gym is to lose weight. Mostly because I don’t want to go out and buy seven new pairs of pants. I’m getting a little tired of leaning casually against things like John Wayne because to sit down means risking catastrophic chino failure. My secondary motivation is that I have found, as I head into middle age, that climbing the steps to our house leaves me out of breath, and I often have to take a break halfway. This would be easier to live with if there weren’t only two of them.

But I digress. Diet. At my age, you do not lose weight by simply going off to gym. You have to watch what you eat, too.

Luckily, I have always treated my body as a temple. Rather less luckily, I have always treated it as a temple to one of the ancient gods, and have sacrificed rather a lot of animals to it. Throw in some cigarettes to serve as burnt offerings and some liquor just for the hell of it, and I find myself in the rather unfortunate position where if I suddenly start eating salad and quinoa my body will go into toxic shock and I will die.

Fashion has come to my rescue. Banting. Apparently, the best way to lose weight these days is to eat lots of fatty meat and treat carbs as if they were soaked in strychnine. Nice. All I have to do is carry on eating normally then, apart from not finishing off the crusts from my children’s sandwiches (apparently in their minds that is where all the strychnine is concentrated).

SO FATTENING! That apple is going to go straight to your hips…

I will, however, have to eat a few vegetables to fight off rickets. I usually get most of my vegetables in the form of pizza toppings and the stuff they use to bulk up burgers with, but those come with the new enemy of all that is good and pure in the world; carbs. Fear not. I have a plan. Smoothies.

So here we go; the obligatory gym diary daily food list…

Breakfast

A 500ml smoothie.

Ingredients;

4 scoops of protein shake left over from the time five years ago I was going to become a bodybuilder. It was a fun six weeks.

Milk. To make it smooth.

4 pieces of broccoli. To give the smoothie the sort of colour that could only be associated with something healthy. I have seen people in health shops buying smoothies with grass in them for the same reason (they grow it in tiny boxes on a shelf behind the counter, like bonsai lawns), but sadly it is winter here and our lawn is dry and brown.

4 pieces of cauliflower. The only packet of broccoli I could find came mixed with cauliflower, and I don’t know what else to do with it.

4 brussels sprouts. Anything as vile as a raw brussels sprout has to be good for you.

1 spoon of instant coffee. Because all this buggering around with brussels sprouts doesn’t leave me enough time for a second cup of coffee in the morning. And I need it.

1 raw egg. Contents only. I tried putting a whole egg in once during my bodybuilding phase, to save money on calcium supplements, but the powdered eggshells stuck to the inside of my mouth, and I couldn’t sleep that night because whenever I ground my teeth together it sounded like someone was dragging an anvil across a rough concrete floor.

Trust me. Calcium supplements are worth every penny.

Lunch

Biltong. For those of you not from South Africa, that is a dried piece of cow with a strip of rich, buttery fat down the side. Ten years ago, living on biltong would have been a one-way ticket to a coronary bypass. These days, though, it’s even better for you than muesli, despite not having changed at all. Science rocks.

Supper

One can of tuna in vegetable oil. When I googled this to see if it was suitable, I discovered that vegetable oil was a toxin, and I might die, but it was too late and there was no other protein in the house.

Snack

3 dry roasted coffee beans I found in the coin pouch of my wallet. Don’t try this. Dry roasted coffee beans are grittier than powdered eggshell, and mysteriously don’t taste at all like a tall skinny latte.

And that was it. It may sound a little Spartan, but my day’s meals were actually rather well thought out. The smoothie left me feeling so nauseous that the idea of food became repellent to me for the rest of the day. And I’m pretty sure that retching burns a lot of calories.

Step 1 of the 23thorns diet is the hardest step to master. This guy is demonstrating almost perfect technique.

And so on to the gym.

Workout

But not to work out. Not yet. First I had to navigate the changeroom.

I’ve been to a gym or two before. I know what gym changerooms are supposed to look like. The one at school was made of raw concrete and smelled of adolescent testosterone and old socks. Then I frequented a gym owned by a chap who competed in the “World’s Strongest Man” competition. The changeroom was much the same, except it smelled of adult testosterone and old socks, and was filled with vast men straining to force themselves into those little wetsuit things powerlifters wear (apparently they’re a little snug) and eating whole chickens.

You ask him why he’s wearing a leotard. I’ll be hiding behind this tree over here.

This was not what I found at my new gym. I strode purposefully into a room that looked like it was designed by the same people who designed the Apple Store; all shiny white surfaces and concealed lighting. And then I froze. In front of me was a line of ten little white vanity tables, each with its own mirror. But that’s not all. Half of them were equipped with hairdryers. The other half had those electric tong things people use to iron their hair.

Christ! I had started off my six week training program by wandering into the women’s changeroom. Now I would have to find a new gym and have my appearance changed by an underground plastic surgeon! I froze, and began to back slowly toward the door, hoping to escape undetected. But it was not to be. A small but noisy group burst in through the door behind me. A group of men.

Yup. Gyms have changed a little since I was last in one. They now provide a handy little tables for men to line up their grooming products on while they iron their hair.

It all made a little more sense when I undressed to put on my gym clothes. I glanced up to see a young man who looked like he had been stung by a swarm of bees taking shirtless selfies in the changeroom mirror. Apparently whoever he intended to show them to would not object to the inclusion of a pale, doughy, and naked forty-two-year-old in the background. Maybe that was the point, and I’m soon going to be appearing on a specialist website called “Naked Dads 2015”.

We don’t have Africanised killer bees round here. We have African killer bees. Even if their stings don’t kill you it can take weeks for the swelling to go down.

I didn’t take it up with him, though, because he seemed so very happy. And so very dedicated to steroids. His hair, by the way, was immaculate. Apparently testosterone doesn’t work the quite same way it did when I was twenty anymore.

And so to my workout. Which was rather dull. Bearing in mind my struggles with the steps to my house, I have decided to start slowly.

I strode purposefully up to a machine with two footrests on moving metal plates, and two moving handlebars like ski-poles. I hopped up like I knew what I was doing, and glanced down in front of me. It had a screen. A touchscreen. With an entire menu of options. Not one of which I understood. Oh, well. I pushed some buttons and began to move my legs around.

Which was a problem. I thought it was one of those machines that guided your legs around it a skiing motion. It wasn’t. The footplates were suspended from strong metal cords on pulleys that let your legs go just about anywhere. Which mine proceeded to do.

I glanced up to my left, where a woman was using her machine to climb some imaginary stairs. To my right, a round and florid man was using his to practice the moonwalk. As one does.

Right. I tried to compromise between the two (if one of them was doing it wrong, I would only be doing it half wrong), and ended up bouncing my legs around like a panic-stricken ostrich trying to free itself from quicksand while being menaced by a Yorkie. I narrowed my eyes, set my jaw, and tried to look like whatever it was I was doing, I was, at least, doing it on purpose.

I was doing a vertical version of this. On purpose.

And then things really went to hell. I glanced down at the touchscreen. There was a section called “games”. I let go of one of the handlebars and tried to push it. After three tries, I got there by timing the upward bounce of my left leg with the forward stroke of my right handlebar. It was well worth the effort. The game menu popped up in front of me. And there, at the top of the list, like a monument to human stupidity, was “Angry Birds”. I was entranced. What sort of criminal deviant would attach a game like “Angry Birds” to a machine that requires you to flail your arms and legs around like a teenage girl with a spider on her back? And what kind of moron would try to play it?

I gave up after fifteen minutes when my yellow bird kept shooting straight down into the ground and the gym attendant started nervously approaching me like he thought I might be having some sort of seizure.

I spent the rest of my workout musing that, while yoga pants might look rather fetching on the right sort of woman, they made the elderly man on the treadmill in front of me look like he had had a backside transplant with a warthog.

It was a very long workout.

And that was that. Or at least it should have been. It wasn’t. I had to go back to the changeroom.

This is where things get a little dodgy. I try to keep things clean around here, but I fear that I am going to have to discuss male genitalia. Sorry. In order to keep things professional, I shall be using the word most favoured by scientists and the medical profession; “dong”. I shall also be using the word “scrotum”, since it is an honest and solid word, like “lozenge”, or “vestibule”, and is nice to say even if the article it describes is a little less appealing. Scrotum. Say it out loud, rolling your “r” slightly. It is the verbal equivalent of a brisk walk in the countryside on a bracingly cold day. You’ll feel refreshed and worthy.

The first thing I noticed as I went through the door was a rotund, hirsute chap at one of the vanity tables blow-drying his chest hair. This struck me as being a little unusual. I mentioned it to Mrs 23thorns, and she felt it was perfectly normal, and that he was probably getting ready for a business meeting. Mrs 23thorns is a little odd. I thought he was preparing to commit some sort of sex crime.

I can’t imagine why else he could have been doing it.

I soon forgot about him, though. As I rounded a corner I was confronted by a friendly little chap who greeted me with a broad and open smile. I smiled back, a little nervously because you shouldn’t smile at people in changerooms, and turned to open my locker. I grabbed my bag and turned around again. He was still standing there, legs slightly apart and hands on his hips.

“How,” he said, “was that workout?” He was naked.

And this is where the situation slipped away from me. I went to a boys-only primary school. And a boys-only boarding school. I know the rules about male group nudity. The first, and by far the most important, is that you may never make eye contact with a dong. It’s just not proper. It makes people edgy.

I immediately glanced down at my new friend’s dong. I couldn’t help myself. His scrotum was clean shaven, as smooth as a new-born baby, albeit one that had been left in the bath for too long.

That is not, however, why I looked at it. We live in a permissive age, and if someone chooses to spend his free time waving razor blades around his most treasured possessions, far be it from me to judge.

“I’m going to be in the bathroom for a little while. Please don’t make any sudden loud noises.”

Nope. The reason I could not avoid looking at his scrotum was that it was bright green. And covered in scales. It was, in fact, tattooed to look like a folded set of reptilian wings. This might seem strange, but it actually made perfect sense, because the dong itself was tattooed to look like a dragon, complete with horns and large, staring eyes. Which was a little disconcerting.

Even more disconcerting was the fact that my new friend had obviously enjoyed having his dong stabbed repeatedly with an ink-filled needle quite a lot more than he did chatting naked to strangers in changerooms. The unfortunate result of this was that his dragon in its current state looked like the result of several generations of inbreeding. The eyes weren’t right. What was obviously a threatening snarl at more exciting moments now just looked like the result of a major stroke. And to top it all, it was hanging its head in shame like the hero of a children’s story titled “Boopy, The Sad Little Dragon Who Couldn’t Find a Friend”.

Boopy.

It’s just not right. I have always felt that one should live and let live. If you are gay, be gay. I don’t care. It’s none of my business, and it certainly takes nothing from my life. Black? Super. Keep it up. There is no need to change on my account. Amish? Keep right on Amishing. And I think it’s really cool that your little carriages have indicators and brake-lights. Although I’m a little concerned as to how you wire those up to the horses. I hope it’s SPCA approved.

My enlightened and progressive attitude, however, apparently has its limits. Society needs its rules. And for me, as of this afternoon, the most important of these should be that if you must insist on illustrating your private parts like a special-needs dragon, you should not be allowed to point it at strangers while you ask them about their day. I swear the thing’s eyes followed me around the room as I showered and dressed.

So that was it. Day one of the 23thorns six-week life-adjustment programme. So far so good. I’ll do them same again tomorrow. Except that I will be changing inside one of the toilet cubicles. I will splash myself down with water from the cistern, and dry myself with toilet paper. Unless I’m going to be going into a business meeting. Then I might risk nipping out to use a hair-dryer. When in Rome…

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41 thoughts on “The Gym Diary. Day One.”

Just what I needed! I’m late to the party, but SO glad to see you writing again! I have a question and a short story of my own to share:
Question: Did you not think to ask if you could have a selfie with the dragon-bearer? You might have feigned a finger injury and let the camera focus a wee bit lower than usual . . . surely the resulting image would be an improvement on the images formed by my fertile, yet somewhat twisted, imagination . . .
Short Story: When I was in my early 20s, I was at a house party (not my usual thing; usually I was to be found at home behind a good book). I ended up in the kitchen chatting with some of the other women. One man joined us and sat close to the table where we were. I cannot for the life of me remember how the conversation go onto the subject of tattoos, but probably because they were quite a new thing in those days. Anyway, people began talking about the oddest tattoos they had seen and then the oddest places where they had seen tattoos. Now I was brought up by pretty old-fashioned parents in a home where modesty and privacy were highly-valued. We didn’t have tv and I had never seen an X-rated film. I was a quiet, shy girl with a philosophical turn of mind. So when the man at the table asked if we wanted to see his tattoo and some of the women said ‘yes’, I was more than shocked to see him unzip his pants and display his cherished tattoo: ‘snake eyes’ at the end of his ‘dong’. Other than baby boys’, I had never seen a male member at that time. It took me some years before that image faded away in my mind. And now you have not only revived it, it is now accompanied by an image of a mis-shapen dragon with dependent wings . . .
I have not laughed so hard for months; well, probably since the Bieber Pants post . . . I do wish you had included a photo, though . . . in the interests of philosophical research and all . . .

Hmmmm. Hopefully your Dragon nemesis and I will not visit France at the same time ever, As a 78 year old middle class American great-grandmother I had enough trouble recently in Albi, France. In a restaurant’s gender shared toilette, I had to walk past a line of urinals in the middle of the room to get to the one cubicle! Although, having been married since the 1950’s to the same man, I was pretty curious and don’t actually remember anything in Emily Post about the etiquette of staring at line up of men’s…………………..

Good to see you back. Thanks for your insight into modern male changing rooms. I’m pretty sure, if I was confronted by your new friend’s dragon tattoo in a moment of passion, I would be incapable of anything but laughter!

WordPress; the place for warm fuzzy feelings and encouragement; good for motivation; good for weight loss. Also good for writers. Since you are a terribly good writer and therefore must surely be filled with angst and a deep sadness; the exercise will help with that too. Ha! I have been writing. Pages and pages. Of dry, scholarly, APA formatted papers filled with in-text citations and multisyllabic medical words that are anything but lyrical. Blathering on (and on) about health policy and therapeutic communication and patient empowerment. Interesting, fulfilling, challenging: but certainly not clever or witty or silly. The Spy Garden NY Times bestselling book filled with laugh-out-loud musings on plants, life and practical and inspirational home, garden and health advice has yet to materialize; so pursuing a doctorate of nursing is probably a good choice. Ha! But in reading this post I was reminded how fun writing can be. Was so glad to see a new post! Scrupulous editing all for the sake of creating a piece that lilts, rises, speeds along and then those glorious punchlines. Since you posted on health/fitness and weight loss obviously I am obliged to give some unsolicited advice (being svelte). My advice is: drink at least 8 glasses of water EVERY day, eat loads of vegetables and don’t tell yourself anything negative. No “I’m fat, I need to get to the gym.” Instead “I am healthy, I’m going to go for a walk.” And so forth. You’re far more likely to treat yourself kindly when you are telling yourself nice things. Cheers to health! Even if bounding around in the sunshine (or at the gym lol) is not the true nature of the brooding, smoking, slightly-inebriated artist/writer, your body will thank-you. And no one needs to know but you that you are actually quite fit, mindful and virtuous (never dulL though!) hahahaahha

Yea! your back and a great post, I never really got the point of gyms, with the exception of climbing walls and swimming pools (I don’t have any large rocks or bodies of water near enough for regular exercise of those sorts) but bike riding or going for a walk with a good hefty pack on are perfectly doable without paying for gym memberships. So my neighbors look at me funny as I trek past with a loaded rucksack and tent on my back, at least I don’t have to share my bathroom when I get home 🙂

Well done Mr 23thorns,I look forward to seeing your progress over the next 6 weeks
I took the step a few years ago of hiring a trainer one day a week at the gym, at least if i don’t go very often I’m obligated to go once a week or twice if I book that extra session
i have to say it’s been years since I’ve been to a gym that has communal change rooms mine is one of those 24hr one with “en suite” bathrooms so no odd meetings in there…… though since they moved the baggage area close to the doors there is that cheery older than I lady who always asks “so how’d you go?” ….. I’m not sure what the suitable reply is

Thanks for writing another blog post that I now have to read again. It was quite pleasant knowing that I could not read your blog. My life was back on track, I was getting my work done, and then your post appeared in my reader…and I’m laughing, enjoying life while I read about your misery. Keep it up!

That was a great read, thanks for the laughs. I couldn’t see the photos unfortunately but will see if I can fix that. The captions were funny though 🙂 . Good luck with your struggle to turn over a new leaf, I look forward to reading how it goes.

“LAWKS! Mr 23Thorns has written a blog post!” Let me hasten to collect the paraphernalia of my “blog post reading” accouterments around me. I have my big mug of tea, it’s 4.43am (the dog let me have a sleep in), I am not already jaded by any other blog posts (“23” comes before “A” in my RSS Feed Reader) and it’s Saturday so I have a goodly portion of time to donate to reading said tome. I must admit, the title has thrown me a bit. My left eye is twitching at the mention of the “G” word and now I see it has been joined by the filthiest of 4 letter words that I can’t even bring myself to mention…the “D” word.

I am not even sure I can bring myself to read the rest of this post Mr 23Thorns. Abject realism has been missing from my life since your last blog post and I fear my sentiments and fine honed cynic retort have grown a little soft around the middle. I will soldier on for old times sake…

I see the Paleo diet has ticked another notch in it’s belt. If I was a real vegan, I would be sniffing and silently judging you right now Mr 23Thorns. As it is, I have only recently started my own 10 step program in order to be able to fit through the door again and thus I must keep my Paleo sneering desires to myself.

Lets look at this pragmatically shall we?

1. Middle aged man who loves meat, drinks, smokes and has a sedentary job (at the book store no less).
2. Desires to clean up his act before he has to fit into those budgie smugglers in our fast approaching summer.
3. Decides to “what the heck!” throw himself in at the deep end and start at the apex of yogic attainment (whiz straight past “moderation” do not stop to collect “stages of advancement” on the way past) with green smoothies, a gym membership, no carbs (best of luck with that one by the way) and no doubt coupled with the double whammy of giving up booze (carb central) and the ciggies?
4. 100 points for your optimism Mr 23Thorns. We will all be here for you in 6 weeks.

By the way, are you actually allowed to have dairy on the Paleo diet? I thought it was all coconut milky?

Coffee is satans food. You have to give it up STAT. That includes any more stray coffee beans you might happen upon in your wallet. “No cheating sir!”

I see you had an exemplary first day Mr 23Thorns. We all look forward (with bated breath) to see how this excellent weight loss and tone up program goes. I am wondering if there is a book in the offing? Will there be a book tour? Are we going to see Kirstie Alley strutting around lauding the possibilities? I can’t wait to line up and get my book signed. Welcome back Mr 23Thorns. You have been missed.

I am not following any particular diet. Compromises have been made. For example, I have already donned the dreaded budgie-smuggler (yesterday was a swimming day), but in order to sport what was essentially a waxed cotton marble-bag with leg-holes, I had to relax the no-alcohol rule. To keep the calorie count as low as possible, though, I improvised by drinking a bottle of aftershave.

I was as pleased as punch when I saw your name on a blog email earlier – I’ve been pining for my usual laugh-out-loud while reading your posts, so clicked the link a.s.a.p!
Thank you for yet another wetting-myself laugh!
I’m looking forward to reading more about your leaf-turning jaunts – though hubby groaned when I explained why he’ll have to get the rubber sheets out of storage again! Lol

Nope. You didn’t accidentally shun me. I’ve just been busy filling up a small wooden shed with dead animal parts. I’m just about done, now (I just have to varnish a dead tortoise and frame a small mirror with zebra jawbones), so hopefully I’ll be popping round here more often…

I am so glad that you are back to writing. I love your sense of humor and your story telling. Wonderful way to start my day…giggling my fool head off 😀
Leslie
p.s. I hear my husband chuckling in the background as I handed him my smart phone to read your post :D!
Leslie

I haven’t laughed out loud like this since your last postings! Thank you.

I too have returned to gym. I spent 10 very long minutes trying to work out how to turn on the shower taps at the showers by the pool before taking the plunge (you know, the ones in front of everyone – I only was going to shower because I thought it would be right and proper after having been on one of those machines for 10 mins and was a sweaty panting mess) – trying to look normal and at ease and feeling like a total idiot. The cleaning lady eventually put me out of my misery. She avoided me the next day.

Maybe there’s a group of us starting up the Spring thing – and we could all share the embarrassments and laughter!

Do you think you can really last 6 weeks? I have been back at gym for one – and am already thinking up excuses.

I have a cunning plan. I am going to gym during my lunch hour at work. You have to choose between going to gym or relaxing next to the pool with a glass of chilled wine. I have to choose between going to gym or sitting in a bare chipboard cubicle while people try to talk to me. I’ll last the six months…